


If I'm a pagan of the good times, my lover's the sunlight

by voices_in_my_head



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: AU of 3x03, Child Abuse, nothing too explicit but be aware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 07:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10692651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voices_in_my_head/pseuds/voices_in_my_head
Summary: "“Blaine?” It’s Peyton’s voice. He doesn’t want to answer. He just… doesn’t want to exist right now. He wants to stay in the shower forever, let it wash everything away."AU of 3x03 where the cure works immediately. It's not just the things Blaine did that come back, but what was done to him as well.





	If I'm a pagan of the good times, my lover's the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of child abuse towards Blaine from Frau Balder and his father. Please don't read if this isn't something you can deal with.

One moment Blaine is looking at the floor of the morgue, the next he’s remembering having to wipe the kitchen floor with his tongue.

“I’m going to throw up,” he says to no one. Bile is rising up, he can still feel the taste, even after all these years.

“Here,” someone says, thrusting a trash can at him. He has no idea who it is, Blaine just grabs it and throws up whatever content his stomach had in it.

The trash is disgusting and it smells and that just makes him throw up more. When there’s finally nothing left, he puts it on the floor and looks away, but he’s in a morgue and everything is pristinely clean and that just brings more memories up.

“Blaine,” someone says, Peyton, and he knows her, he knows their story, but right now he can’t focus on that.

“I need… I need,” he starts, but Blain doesn’t know what he needs. He just wants to forget it again. He looks up, almost ready to beg Ravi to just give him the cure again, hoping that it would take his memories away, but Ravi doesn’t look all that concerned. Right, he probably just thinks Blaine’s memories of being a serial killer are catching up to him.

Those memories are there. But right now, just like with Peyton still whispering comforting words to him, he can’t focus on that.

“Shower,” he says. That’ll help. A hot shower, hot enough to burn his skin clean off.

“It’s by the back, second door on the left,” Liv says and Blaine pretty much runs there. Liv’s voice shouts after him, “we’ll bring you a towel and clothes!”

Blaine turns the shower on and gets in after taking his shoes and socks off, not bothering with the rest of the clothes. With the water burning hot, he finally starts taking them off, trying to breathe slowly.

It’s over. It’s been over for years. He stopped her from hurting her. Though not permanently. Why in God’s name did Blaine never kill her? Oh right, because he’d been so focused in pretending that all that stuff never bothered him, that killing her would just be proving otherwise, that his father would have known he’d gotten to him.

Blaine should have just killed them years before and be done with it all, to hell with the money.

He throws the wet clothes to the floor and grabs some soap to clean himself. Blaine turns the water slightly cooler, just enough so that he won’t actually get burns from it.

Blaine cleans himself over and over again, and it hurts, but slowly he’s calming down. He remembers how many times he took showers just like these growing up. The days were he just felt like his body was dirty, outside and inside, in a way that he would never be rid of, no matter what.

And the mouthwash he’d gone through. God, the mouthwash. Frau Bader had never touched him in a sexual way and she’d barely beat him either, but everything else… She’d turned him into her personal slave with the full agreement of his father so that she could “turn him into a man.”

“Blaine?” It’s Peyton’s voice. He doesn’t want to answer. He just… doesn’t want to exist right now. He wants to stay in the shower forever, let it wash everything away. But of course, if even being a zombie – twice, he might add – didn’t do it, he doubts it’ll be showering at Seattle PD’s morgue that’ll do the trick.

“Yeah?” Blaine forces himself to ask, mostly because he wants to pretend that everything is fine, that he isn’t falling apart right now. And partly because Peyton has never been unkind to him, even after she found everything he was. She ghosted him but she didn’t treat him cruelly. He won’t do it to her either.

“Are you OK? You’ve been in there for twenty minutes,” she sounds concerned.

“Oh,” it’s all he can think to say. He goes to turn the shower off but stops midway through the motion. He isn’t clean yet. He just… he needs more time. “I…”

“It’s okay,” Peyton reassures him, “you can stay as long as you want. I just wanted to make sure that you were… well, alive.”

“I’m fine,” it’s a lie and they both know it but luckily Peyton doesn’t call him out on it.

“Okay, I’m going to… leave. There’s a towel and clothes outside the door. Just… take as long as you need.”

“OK,” he says, just because he probably needs to say something. Blaine hears Peyton walking away and goes back to scrubbing himself.

Slowly, he begins to calm down, his motions less rush. It’s over. It happened years ago. It sucked and it hurt and Blaine hates Frau Bader and his father in a way that he’s never hated anyone else, but he moved on. At least, as much as it’s possible to move on from that.

He takes a deep breath. It’s over, he keeps telling himself. _It’soverit’soverit’soverit’sover._ It had been his mantra for years and apparently it’s become it again.

Fucking Ravi. Fucking amnesia. Why the fuck was amnesiac Blaine such a softie? He sighs. It doesn’t matter. He’s had his breakdown, now he’s going to go out there, say that the cure made him feel sick and that’ll be it.

With a deep breath, Blaine turns down the water. He immediately feels chilled but it takes some seconds for him to force his body to leave the shower.

He opens the door just enough to grab the stuff from the floor and quickly dries himself and gets the clothes on. He doesn’t look at himself or in the mirror until he’s pretty much covered up.

Blaine moves his shoulders back and puts on a smug face before he leaves the bathroom.

“Well, Team, it appears that dear old me is back. So not to worry, General, after you take the zombie cure you can take memory cure and you’ll be just dainty,” he smiles at everyone as he reenters the morgue.

They’re looking at him strangely. Not with pity, but like… they know there’s something wrong. Even Ravi. Blaine almost panics but his memory of the amnesiac time is about as good as everything that went down before and he definitely didn’t tell any of them anything personal about his past.

Blaine forces himself not to look at Peyton too hard, to see how much she’s figured out.

“Well, then, I think it’s time I take my leave. Not to worry, Chakrabarti, I’ll send these clothes back as pristine as the previous ones. At least this time there’s no blood to wash away.”

Blaine sends them gun fingers and with a skip turns around. He forces himself not to hunch his shoulders as he wants to. There will be no more breaking down.

“Wait,” Peyton calls, “I’ll drive you home.”

Blaine turns back with a smile. The type of smile that’s saying, “sweetheart, we had a good time, but I think we both now this isn’t going anywhere.” It’s not what he feels at all, but it’s what he must do. Blaine doesn’t get close to people. He just… doesn’t. People are fallible, people will break his trust so no one has his trust except himself. And even then… he is definitely finding a way to write himself a message in case he goes amnesiac again. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Peyton grabs her bag and starts walking towards him. The type of walk he’s pretty sure she uses in courtroom. She ignores, or maybe simply doesn’t notice, Ravi’s puppy eyes being sent his way. Right, love. What a pesky business. “I’m driving you home and that’s final.”

He offers her his arm when she’s close enough. “Well, then. Who am I to say no to a pretty lady?”

Peyton looks at him like there’s so much she wants to ask so he turns back to the gang. “Toodle-oo.”

Major nods at him, Liv sends him a sad smile and Ravi just frowns.

Blaine leads Peyton out and doesn’t allow himself to drop the mask. Peyton keeps silent on the way to car. And then on the car.

The second she’s parked in the front of his house – fucking funeral home, dear God – Blaine opens the door.

Peyton puts a hand on his arm and calls his name in a low voice and he knows he should just walk away. Maybe she’ll call a couple times, even pass by his house. All Blaine has to do is ignore her, say some mean things, and it’ll all be back to how it was.

Instead, with a sigh he turns back to her. He doesn’t close the door, though.

“I’m not… I’m not going to ask anything. I’m not going to impose myself. But… if you want to talk, I’m here.”

Blaine nods and puts a leg out of the car. Then, he thinks of something and with a frown puts it back inside and closes the door. He turns to Peyton.

“You knew, didn’t you? I thought you didn’t want me to take the cure just because you didn’t want to have to deal with the real me. The psycho who kills innocents and yadda yadda yadda. But… you knew I wouldn’t just remember the things I did, didn’t you? I’d remember… the things that happened to me too.”

“Blaine,” Peyton gives him a sad smile, “men like that don’t speak to their children like that just when they’re adults.”

“It wasn’t him. I’m not… excusing him, he was awful, but it wasn’t him. The first time Frau Bader slapped me I was seven. The minute my father was home I told him what happened. I was so sure he was going to fire her. It was the first she’d hit me, but she was always making threats about all the awful things she was going to do to me. He called for her and I was sure this would be the moment I’d be free of her… Instead he gave her a raise. Told her that it was good there was a woman around willing to turn me into a man since his wife was incapable of it.”

“Blaine,” Peyton whispers his name. Blaine just stares through her. He doesn’t feel like crying. He hasn’t felt like crying in years.

“She stopped when I was sixteen. The second time she tried to drop the keyboard cover on my fingers I got up and told her that the next time she touched me or had me do anything, I’d break her kneecaps with a baseball bat.

“The next day I left the house and went to live with some friends.”

Peyton just looks at him. He sighs.

“She did awful things to me. And I’ve done awful things to other people… Don’t… Don’t try to excuse my actions. There isn’t an excuse and I’m not looking for one.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Blaine sighs again. “Why are you here, Peyton? Just forget about me. Chakrabarti is more than ready to be your prince charming. I’m not that man, the nice naïve amnesiac man who…” He stops himself.

“Who what?” Peyton whispers. “Who fell for me? Whom I fell for?”

“Peyton…” he sighs again.

“I’m not trying to excuse the things you did but… Liv, Major, Ravi… they only got the bad side at the beginning. I… I never got it. You were never cruel or rude to me. Even after I found out the truth. You were always nice. Sometimes… sometimes I admit I have a hard time dealing with the things you’ve done and yes, you having amnesia was a good excuse. For myself. But you don’t have it anymore and I still don’t feel like running.

“Blaine, you… You make me feel safe.”

Blaine smirks. “I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before.”

Peyton puts a hand on his cheek. Blaine forces himself not to close his eyes. “Don’t hide from me.”

“You don’t want to know who I really am. You won’t like me.”

“Maybe, but… I don’t want to run away.”

Blaine should be the one leaving. He still doesn’t feel guilty. He started working for Mr. Boss and he told Blaine to kill someone so he had. He hadn’t thrown up and he hadn’t felt ecstatic either. It had simply been the way the world turned. Blaine wanted to be a criminal and these were the things criminals did so he had.

“You want me to change.”

“I want you to stop killing people, yes,” Peyton has tears in her eyes, “if you promise me you’ll stop and you don’t… it’s going to break me. So… just give me an answer now. If you say you won’t kill more innocent people, I’ll stay. If you don’t… I’ll go and that’ll be it.”

Blaine presses his lips together. He thinks hard about that. Not about not killing people, but about promising not to do it and then doing it and what it would do to Peyton.

It’s not a good thing to trust people. To rely on them, to expect things from them, to love them. Yet…

Blaine grabs her cheeks and presses their foreheads together. “I promise… Except my father and Frau Bader. I can’t promise I won’t kill them if I get a chance.”

“It’s okay,” Peyton murmurs against his lips, “I’ll help you bury the bodies.”

Blaine just presses his forehead harder against her, trying to remember the moment of his undoing.

 


End file.
